Starring: (voices) Patton Oswalt, Brian Dennehy, Janeane Garofalo
Director: Brad Bird
Country: USA
Genre: Animation

Best Animated Feature – Academy Awards

So often filmmakers ask audiences to suspend their disbelief in order to accept an amazing and unlikely story. But Ratatouille asks one of the biggest favors of an audience, perhaps ever. Remy is a rat. A rat with aspirations to become a beloved French chef. There’s something psychological that triggers revulsion when the mind mixes rats and food, but leave it to Pixar and Brad Bird to gain our trust and give us the best return on on our investment.

Bird’s script is as immaculate as its main character’s impeccable palate. It utilizes a traditional sense of storytelling with progressive themes without sacrificing a whimsical sense of fun. The character development is intricately measured allowing for the characters to overcome more than just physical obstacles. Remy and Linguini undergo such layered transformations that would be inspiring even for a live-action film.

The success of this film can be ascribed to the intense dedication that Pixar has for researching its films’ subjects, the shear craftsmanship of the script, or it could be chocked up to pure movie magic.